Various structures such as engineered poles, utility structures, frames, lattice structures and the like are used to support electrical and communication cables outdoors. Certain of these structures support high voltage cables. Safety concerns dictate that these structures be suitably electrically grounded. Quite often, these structures are formed of multiple interconnected components, such as for example, multi-piece attachable vertical poles and horizontally extending arms which support the actual cable. In order to assure that electrical ground continuity is established across the multiple components, a ground strap is employed to electrically interconnect one component to the adjacent component. Thus, the ground strap provides the primary ground connection between components rather than relying upon the physical mechanical interconnections between the components.
Moreover, certain utility code requirements include provisions for such additional grounding. Typically, such additional grounding provisions, if added to existing structures, require physical attachment of the ground strap to the components of the structure itself. This often requires either welding ground pads to the structure or attaching the ground pads with securement hardware such as nuts and bolts.
As may be appreciated, such attachment is a time consuming and costly endeavor. Also, in the case of painted or galvanized structures, the attachment of the grounding strap by welding and the like could cause damage to the protective coating placed on the structure. This would require additional application of a coating to the structure to replace the damage done by attachment of the ground strap.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a simple mechanism for attaching a ground strap across components of a utility structure.